{"id":27494,"date":"2026-05-04T18:53:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/world-liberty-financial-sues-justin-sun-for-defamation-after-his-fraud-claims-go-viral\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T18:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:53:14","slug":"world-liberty-financial-sues-justin-sun-for-defamation-after-his-fraud-claims-go-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/world-liberty-financial-sues-justin-sun-for-defamation-after-his-fraud-claims-go-viral\/","title":{"rendered":"World Liberty Financial sues Justin Sun for defamation after his fraud claims go viral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">World Liberty Financial, the crypto project co-founded by President Trump and his family, filed a defamation lawsuit against Tron founder Justin Sun on May 4 in Miami-Dade County, Florida, alleging a \u201ccoordinated media smear campaign\u201d after Sun sued the project for fraud in April.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_16e274c152976aa06e28c6a013d1da54\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>World Liberty Financial alleges Sun conducted straw purchases of WLFI tokens to conceal his identity, engaged in short selling of the token, and made false statements on social media after his tokens were frozen in violation of his terms of sale.<\/li>\n<li>Sun fired back immediately, calling the suit \u201ca meritless PR stunt\u201d and saying he stands by his actions, while WLFI CEO Zach Witkoff said he looks forward to \u201cthe truth coming out in court.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The WLFI token rose approximately 12% on the day of the filing, though the token is still down roughly 85% since its September 2025 launch.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>World Liberty Financial sued Justin Sun for defamation in Florida state court on May 4, one day after Consensus 2026 opened in Miami. The filing came in direct response to Sun\u2019s April 21 federal lawsuit in California, in which he accused WLFI of embedding a secret \u201cbackdoor blacklisting function\u201d in its smart contract that allowed the project to freeze, restrict, and effectively confiscate investor tokens. <\/p>\n<p>As crypto.news reported, Sun said the project froze all of his tokens, removed his voting rights, and threatened to burn his holdings without cause, and that he had $75 million invested in WLFI since 2024. In Monday\u2019s countersuit, World Liberty alleged that Sun made \u201cstraw purchases\u201d by acquiring WLFI tokens on behalf of undisclosed third parties, may have engaged in short selling of the token, and then launched a false public narrative to cover the conduct. \u201cSun has launched a coordinated media smear campaign against World Liberty Financial and refused to stop even when confronted with the truth,\u201d the project said in a statement on X.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>Fortune <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/05\/04\/trump-world-liberty-financial-countersuit-justin-sun-defamation-allegations-of-fraud\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">reported<\/a> that Sun had written on X: \u201cEvery action taken by the WLFI team to secretly implant backdoor controls over user assets, to freeze investor funds without disclosure or due process, and to treat the crypto community as a personal ATM, someone must be held personally accountable for these actions.\u201d WLFI\u2019s suit called those statements false or defamatory and said Sun was \u201cwell aware\u201d that the project had the right to freeze his tokens under its terms of sale. Sun responded the same day: \u201cThe alleged defamation lawsuit that World Liberty announced on X today is nothing more than a meritless PR stunt. I stand by my actions and look forward to defeating the case in court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As crypto.news documented, the dispute escalated in April when Sun accused WLFI of hiding blacklist controls while the project simultaneously faced scrutiny over its use of self-issued tokens as loan collateral and a near-93% utilisation rate in its USDC pool. As crypto.news tracked, Sun\u2019s frozen WLFI wallet had already lost approximately $60 million in value before the lawsuits were filed, tracking the token\u2019s broader 85% decline from its September 2025 highs. Neither lawsuit has reached trial, and no allegations have been proven in court.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World Liberty Financial, the crypto project co-founded by President Trump and his family, filed a defamation lawsuit against Tron founder Justin Sun on May 4 in Miami-Dade County, Florida, alleging&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27495,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27494\/revisions\/27495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}